I can't fathom the number of animals I've murdered in video games...

I believe I've killed at least 1000 boars in one sitting. We're digital mass murderers! But that's ok, I have also been digitally sentenced, imprisoned, digitally raped and murdered, and digitally risen from the grave to have my vengeance on the Tolkien universe --

The numbers of elves and dwarves and humans and gnomes that have met their untimely death at my undead hands, wrapped in leather, cloaked in shadows -- another very large number of killings.

You may refer to me as a High Warlord of Blackrock Mountain. Rawr!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Death to ALL life! May the black dragonflight rise again! May they roast endless numbers of sheep.

Hi @lucky760, did something to do with youtube lengths change around midday on Wednesday? I've noticed that a surprisingly large number of submissions since that time have been marked as length=3:56 by @siftbot, although their actual lengths vary. The only vids I saw since then with lengths other than 3:56 had been assigned a length by a human.

Really, board suppression? What? How? By whom?
Since the original (unsuccessful) attempted ban, there's been little but outrageous levels of support and welcome with only one negative comment about the video and even they didn't downvote (and a few tame jokes about the oddly large number of repeated promotions) ....and it's in the top 15!
What on earth are you talking about...again?

Awful lot of hospitals named after saints, as well as a large number of schools. Religion teaches empathy for other people, it teaches right behavior, it teaches the ten commandments, it teaches the golden rule.

Just because people fail to follow those ideas wholly you condemn everyone who believes in any of it.

To replace it you bring in some philosophical sophistry that has nothing to back it up unless it is to say that there is a spark of Godliness behind it all.

It is good that we can agree that people have an innate sense toward empathy but it's an empty box.

All you have to say is that psychotics are restrained by religion, ipso facto, anyone who believes in God is a psychotic.

I don't know too many psychotics who open hospitals, care for the sick/infirm/dying, educate the masses.

This is a very interesting question that I've thought quite a lot about during my life (to myself, not in any sort of professional capacity).

The conclusions that I have come to (so far) are:
I think that, yes, religion in general terms IS a significant (but it is a stretch to say the ONLY) restraint on a pretty large number of people. Which is a prospect that I personally have a negative and pessimistic reaction to, similar to what it sounds like you do.

However, I think that there are lots of mitigating circumstances. First, many different religions currently provide that restraint to people. And in the past, many many more religions provided it to even more people. Many of those different religions have been very very different. Some have been near polar opposites. That proves that if your goal is restraining people from being utterly evil, and someone suggests that religion has made or is making a noble effort towards that (like your uncle), the positive aspects they are cheering for are not unique to any single religion, or dogma, or whatever.

If one accepts that many many diverse and completely different religions can potentially have the positive effects that we're looking for, then the actual source of those effects can not be something specific to any one religion. Instead, it has to be something that is held in common by all such religions.

Religions are so diverse and different, it might be hard to imagine something that they have in common. No specific god is held in common, even though all the Abrahamic religions might arguably share that aspect. Not even the simple idea of a god or gods or creator is far from universal; Buddhists revere no god.

Yet I believe that there is one easily overlooked thing that all religions DO have in common. Humanity. They all come from flawed but usually well-meaning people.

However, atheists hold that humanity in common with religions as well. And that makes me believe that if we understand humanity better, either through psychology, or empathy, or whatever, we can achieve the positive effects of religions without the religions themselves. Certainly without the stone-age dogmatic nonsense -- which tends to have arguably as many if not more BAD effects as good. This actually gives me great hope for humanity; rather the opposite to the conclusion that I came to originally when pondering the question.

There may always be people who have no empathy, and for whom nothing would serve to restrain them from what humanity at large would easily identify as great evil. No religion will handle such individuals any better than no religion ... so I guess I don't lose any sleep over that.

Thanks

I've noticed a very large number of *findthumbs lately

The reason why these campaigns will get nowhere: the subtleties asked for are sometimes too arbitrary and too subjective to expect large numbers to go along with it and because women are not always mind readers (contrary to what this one may think), and misinterpretations can easily occur. Some dangerous psychos and sociopaths actually come across as being quite "charming," while some friendly and innocuous comments may be interpreted as being rather creepy. So, campaigns like this will get nowhere in actually changing anything for the better.

The skills of understanding context will continue to devolve as communities break down (along with families and childhood education). Increasingly, we are living in a society of strangers, and this is yet another result of the statism that progressives continue to defend. See, it's all about feeling safe. And without community, contexts that feel safe become more scarce. A state-driven "society" is not a community.

Meanwhile, in reality, the very attempt to legislate behavior like this will serve to further develop two trends: the "catcall" culture they so dislike and something along the lines of what's going on in Japan, the other opposite. Despite what this video attempts to portray, I have already heard the complaint many many times from women that they either get harassment or they get no attention at all.

And this'll be yet another "I told you so" that they'll miss.

The point at issue isn't 'is islam bad', though obviously it is; but 'is it possible to generalise about large numbers of people who are in the same club and believe the same things' well yes of course it is. As for corroborative evidence, this is not an assertion that requires it. To the extent that it's possible to generalise about anything, it must be possible to generalise about people who have voluntarily signed up to the same ideology.

What's more the actions of individual muslims aren't important. You can't judge any ideology by the actions of its supporters because mostly they will act from, for example, biological imperatives, personal temperament, cultural factors independent of religion and so on, regardless of what they profess to believe. Which is not to say religion isn't influential and dangerous. To assess the merit of an ideology you have to look at what it actually says, what are its core tenets, what are the principles it espouses, and if you do that and ask the question 'does islam promote violence' the answer is an unequivocal 'yes'. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with promoting violence, but it's not my fault these people can't structure a proposition clearly.

Let's build some consensus. I'm sure everyone here can agree that islam's claims are unfactual, that there is no allah, that mohammed was a liar and that all muslims are idiots. These things are obvious, but given these certain truths wherefore do we defend these delusional maniacs? Certainly none of them is innocent. These are creatures who have signed up to follow the example, the whole point of islam is to follow mohammed's example, of a notorious murderer, slaver and rapist (historical and canonical facts); whose rambling, repetitive book is riddled with threats of eternal torture for unbelievers and exhortations to the faithful to slay those unbelievers, hastening them to that unjust end. Guilty, every one.

If you oppose bigotry, you oppose islam.

Actually it was rhetorical, I knew where I was going to start, I was not asking you in a real way or expecting you to answer...that's what rhetorical means.
Because the video was limited to American schools and systems does not mean the comments will be, we have a diverse bunch of sifters from all over the globe that might want to comment, and might not stick to America as the only place that counts. It is logical to ASSUME you might have meant only American schools, but some of us don't assume we know another's meaning and just go with what you wrote. If you wanted to limit your comment to American schools, you could easily have written exactly that. There's not a character limit on posts!
Or, perhaps Bareboards2 knows some Americans that would be insulted by your painting them as lowest common denominators at their basest. I would be one. I admitted those you describe exist, and may even be a majority, but Americans are not homogenous by far, and there are many that do exactly what you claimed they don't.
It's not hard to CARE, it's hard to retain, it's hard to focus, it's hard to attend at times, it's hard to come up with supplies, it's not hard at all to CARE about education, and I've never met a person of lesser means that didn't wish they could get more education. Saying they don't care is insulting, saying they don't achieve (as well as rich counterparts) is fact, sad tragic fact.
Yes, I agree, we need to help the poor a LOT more, their plight is getting worse daily while those not in need are the only ones succeeding.
I'm right there with you on free higher education, for the betterment of the nation AND it's citizens. College grads are far less likely to commit violent crimes or otherwise be drains on society, so are a boon for all.
It sounds like you may be confusing a lack of time, money, ability, and energy with a lack of caring, or perhaps not. As I said, those you describe do exist, in large numbers, they are simply not the ONLY variety of American student.
What?!? If this woman is in class working and paying for a degree while trying to raise 3 kids, one disabled, it sure sounds to me like she CARES about education, and that she's not lacking in educational pursuance or lack of drive, she's possibly failing for lack of energy and time would be my guess, or maybe from lack of educational preparation, or innate ability. If she didn't care, she shouldn't be spending money and time being in class working for a degree that no longer guarantees more money, she should be in welding class, or making bank cleaning up the school. There's nothing wrong with that, I've done both. People who only want to get more money and don't care about knowledge should go that route, they'll have a much better chance of success and not be in crippling debt for a chance they'll use their diploma for financial gain.
WTF?!? When they stopped the abuse, did you care then? The poor have tribulations, but are not constantly working to the bone unable to even contemplate a better future because they're outrageously accosted by life every second of the day. Be real. When there's time to think, many people of all social strata think how they would like to lean something new. You obviously cared enough to be in classes now even with this abuse you speak of, just like I did when and after all those things happened to me (but with only one brother. For me it was actually incentive to learn more and be 'better' than my brother whenever possible, in order to have a better life, I know I'm a freak though ), so what's your point? The poor don't think about furthering their education 100% of the waking day because they're too busy being poor, so they don't care about it at all? That's just silly. I think many if not most don't think about it much because they've determined there's no reasonable opportunity for them to achieve it, so why dwell on what you can't have. It' s not an issue of not careing.
I think we should help them have the opportunity to gain higher education and ability to make use of that opportunity because we know most of them DO CARE about education, but could certainly use help to achieve it. Those that don't care (I again admit they exist, but not only among the poor) should be helped to care, because it's important for them and us to have everyone educated.
Jon Stewart was generalizing, not making a statement about each and every American. I only take issue with the broad brush strokes painting all Americans in the same ugly color, I think we're a quite varied and interesting group, and I don't resemble your generalization in the least...and I'm American. I did admit that I think many, if not most Americans do fit your description, but you seem to still take exception to that viewpoint.

Has a underlying "taxes are theft" theme hidden inside. It also totally sidesteps a lot of important steps needed when large number of people live inside finite space, infrastructure, order, sustenance. It all needs to be managed, otherwise we are back to tribes instead of nations. We are free but responsible, if nothing else than to our fellow humanbeings. Being totally free also means freedom to kill, maim, destroy. And we are all a bit evil, selfish, enough so that taxes are not voluntary.. It is so easy to say that taxes enslave us when you don't give out any alternatives that would work.. Anarchy does not work, it's the power of the strongest, anarcho-capitalism is a horrible idea. It is about as equally terrifying as Ayn Rands ideas.

I'm not sure how much credence I can give the wiki page...I note it claims things that are obviously wrong, like "the design does not have a long lifespan when compared to other engine designs due to large numbers of moving parts" while in fact this motor has far fewer moving parts than normal motors. It did make some good points, like the first one that occurred to me about friction, but also made some bad points such as claiming 'mechanical complexity' as a drawback, while in fact it seems far more simple than normal motors.
"extra complicated machined parts" also exist in normal motors, and can be made fairly cheaply and easily in bulk.
Excess use of oil is an issue, but one they should be able to solve with proper machining and materials. Low RPM is fine for many applications, like a generator, so long as it's efficient it's fine and might even be better. Since you get high torque at low RPM with this design, low RPM seems to be ideal.
They claimed it had comparable horsepower to the same displacement normal motors in the prototype...if true, that point is moot.
Actually, there seems to be less moving mass in this motor, consider the mass of the crank shaft and counterbalances, connecting rods and pistons, the camshaft, rods, lifters, rockers, and valves. This motor only had a compact 'crank' and the connecting rods and pistons, and the output shaft. That's less actually moving to my eye.
The 'potential for explosion' was claimed on Wiki to be a design flaw of the case thickness around the 'crank', which could easily be thickened if it doesn't have to fit inside a torpedo....potential removed.
I'm not saying it's perfect, or necessarily even feasible, but it does seem to have more going for it than you give it credit for and is worth following it's progress to me.

Unfortunately this is not very special because a large number of people are like this behind the wheel, however it does mean that this person should not have a license to operate a motor vehicle. I understand some people are not great at parallel parking but this shows a distinct lack of spatial awareness and reasoning.

Too many people in this country see driving as a right and not a privilege and therefore fail to properly learn and/or be trained. This is also due to the fact that most people operate under the assumption that a car is an appliance, rather than the 4000lb killing machine that it is.

@RedSky

20 billion was just an arbitrarily large number I chose to demonstrate that I think that the world would survive significant population growth beyond what we'll be dealing with in the near future.

The point of no return I was referring to is simply a point where we won't be able to get back to a place where we can sustain human population levels without significant environmental degradation and territorial disputes, among other challenges I'd prefer not to experience.

I do consider things like global warming, the fact that China is buying up land in Africa to feed its population, US foreign policy's competitive focus on securing cheap oil and the large scale destruction of rainforest to make way for single crop agriculture in Brasil to be symptoms of an imbalance in population vs. resources.

I'm not drawing the line at "everyone and stock up at the grocery store/pumps" type destruction before I take notice and preach caution. I think that defining that as a deadline would be irresponsible.

Again, I agree that we could theoretically mechanize the whole world in a way that grows the supply of resources and shares them equitably amongst an enormous human population, but that goes against the type of world I'd want to live in (excessive mechanization of natural resources) and the way human social systems typically work (equitable sharing).

There are various estimates on how much longer exponential human population growth will last, but it has certainly happened on a scale of centuries or decades - blips like baby boomers are just expected outliers within that trend.

But what's more important is that even if population levels peter off, it is consumption - which is the only statistic that really matters because it is the only negative effect of population increase - that will continue to increase exponentially as a greater proportion of the world's population begins to achieve first world living standards.

This is why free trade alone is not enough to solve problems. While it is likely to bring people out of poverty, raise education levels and increase human rights (all very good things), it will also continue to push our overall imprint on the planet in a more exponential direction than I'm comfortable with (one reason being the argument detailed in this video).

But of course I'm also uncomfortable with the prospect of any sort of forced population reduction mechanism, and I'm also uncomfortable with the notion of not raising people out of poverty.

So as I see it the only thing left to mitigate my fears is to place a primary emphasis on Education.

There's a million and one ways to do this: Everything from broad, effectual efforts like getting the Pope to get with the program and endorse contraceptives, to nearly insignificant efforts like arguing with people on the internet in hopes that you contribute some small part to a culture that places some significant emphasis on educating people about the importance of self control and restraint in every type of consumption - family size included.

Round up is one of the safest chemicals according every farmer anywhere. The only fear farmers have with round up is caution not to kill off any union tended plants. A very long list of other chemicals farmers are very cautious using knowing their effects range from giving you headaches, to making you sick, to outright killing you if you use them incorrectly. Round up comes with none of those fears.

If you have or know of a better solution than killing weeds with poison then there are billions of dollars waiting for you to claim them. In the mean time an extraordinarily large number of very smart people are all currently employed on finding better solutions. Round up ready crops are just one big step, there will no doubt be others. You also imply round up is 'new', it is in fact vet much older than most chemicals out there, just so you know.

Less people to feed seems reasonable enough, but the history of effort and success of such ventures hasn't really made it very desirable......

Yeah man, poppies too ya frikkin' flower-murdererin' hop-junkies!!
But yeah, what oohlalasassoon says, I haven't heard about any papers being published like, everyday about POPPIES disappearing in large numbers, take opiates and shut the fuck up! That thumbnail looks like she's about to go all Josef Mengele on that poor bee...

I have osteoarthritis in my genes, mom, granny had it-Hmmmm....

(googles beekeeping)